


Mistakes

by Lirillith



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Inspired by Art, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin was just an ordinary fisherman, until the day he found a merman in his net.  After that, he was still just an ordinary fisherman, but he had a smitten merman following him around.  A smitten merman who didn't understand some important things about humans.</p><p>(Based on Joanna Estep's <a href="http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/tagged/merman-problems/chrono">Merman Sousuke art</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistakes

Rin had known better. He'd made a mistake, and it had nearly killed him.

 _He_ had nearly killed him, more like it. The mistake had a face, and powerful shoulders, and gills along his ribs. 

Or maybe _it_ was right after all. Just because something looked human, or half-human, didn't mean it really was. 

The stories all warned you about mermaids. They looked like beautiful women, because that was what most lonely men on long voyages wanted most in the world, and they'd lure you out into deep water or off your vessel entirely and kiss the breath from your lungs and drag you down. 

When Rin pulled his ocean-eyed mistake out of the net, he'd thought he'd seen the truth of a myth; they were real, but they weren't just women. Well, they'd have to have both, wouldn't they? He'd shaken the merman's shoulder, felt his wrist and neck for a pulse, checked his injuries for anything like hooks — he'd felt guilty at the thought of hurting this creature, which was almost funny in retrospect — and then sat back at some distance to watch him and see if he'd wake. Looking back on it, he'd have done better just to roll him back into the sea and get the hell away, but he'd been curious. 

He hadn't really saved the merman, just gotten him loose of the net. The injuries didn't seem to be anything he'd done, and when the merman woke, and spotted him, he seemed to get that. It was getting on toward night, the sunset graying out, but still light enough to see. Their eyes had met, for a long, breathless moment, and then the merman had smiled, just like a human might, and started pulling himself on his elbows back into the water. 

Rin had stood, like he could help, but the thrashing of the merman's tail kept him from getting too close until he was able to swim away. Rin followed, standing at the water's edge. The merman came back up, head and shoulders above the water, and lifted his hand in acknowledgment, just like a human would. Rin did the same, and then the merman dove again, and slapped the water with his tail, and he was gone.

That was that, Rin figured, a crazy tale he'd tell till he was an old man and no one would ever believe, and he went home. 

And the next morning as he was putting out to sea, a dark-haired human head popped up out of the misty pre-dawn waters and scared the living shit out of him. He screamed like a little girl, and the merman thrashed back in alarm and nearly capsized him. Not for the last time, it'd turn out. 

It was like petting a stray cat and having it follow you home. A huge, fishy stray cat with a human torso. The merman would play around his boat, try to grab the edge until Rin's yelling and kicks and impotent threats got the message across, and once he figured out Rin was trying to catch fish, he started bringing them to Rin like prizes. The merman version of a dead bird on the doorstep: swordfish and tuna and sharks. Rin got him to show his fins where the injuries had been, and like he'd expected, they were healing just fine; saltwater was good for that. 

It was a pain, accidentally making friends with a merman, but it seemed clear the guy meant well. Once he figured out Rin didn't want his boat to be upside-down he'd help to right it, and he stopped doing things that made it capsize in the first place. They couldn't seem to figure out how to talk to each other — Rin wasn't totally sure the merman could talk — but he tried to teach it his name, at least. They were able to communicate in their own way. Gestures. Expressions. 

Other things.

Kissing him didn't feel dangerous, or at least no more than kissing anyone ever did. It felt right. When he went back on land his dreams were full of salty lips and wet shoulders and the flutter of gills beneath his fingers. 

And then there'd been the contest. He'd pulled up an unusually large tuna, and the merman brought him a bigger one, and so it had gone. He'd groused cheerfully to no one, since the merman wouldn't understand it, about how it wasn't fair since he couldn't go chasing down bigger fish, but whatever; the merman won handily, and he wanted a kiss as a prize, and who was Rin to turn him down?

Rin was an idiot, he could see that now. There'd been a moment's romantic thrill when the merman pulled him in and down, when he'd felt the full-body press of solid, surprisingly warm flesh. And then he'd realized they were still descending, that the merman's arms were wrapped around him like iron bars, and he felt the cold spike of panic in his heart and the stabbing of saltwater when he should have taken in air.

He'd awakened on the dock, lungs and eyes burning, with a sick feeling in his stomach and the merman looming over him like it was waiting to finish the job. He'd scrambled back, gasping, his nose and mouth streaming water to match the tears; his mind wanted to scream but his lungs and throat weren't up to the job. The merman had looked for all the world like he'd hurt its feelings. 

Maybe it thought this was some kind of revenge. Maybe it blamed Rin all along for the net and the still-healing cuts. Or maybe they really were just dangerous killers, mermen and mermaids and all their kind; it had been toying with him like a cat with a mouse, and Rin had doomed himself by not just bashing its head in with a rock.

Nearly doomed himself. He'd lost his boat and his catch and he was going to need a loan to get a new one. He'd lost the way it felt like the sun hadn't really risen until his merman met him on the water, and he was stuck on land till the new boat was finished, but he was still breathing. And he couldn't figure out who to thank for that except the merman. 

It'd taken him some time to learn before, after all, about things like boat stability. If breathing was another thing he needed to learn about, Rin just hoped once was enough.

 

With nothing to do all day, Rin took to ranging along the shore. Even he couldn't spend all day swimming. It was strange seeing all the coast up close that he'd normally only seen from the water, trudging through the sand and slipping on the rocks. He picked up some shells for his mom and Gou, and every once in a while he'd still strip down and swim a ways out just because there was nothing to stop him. 

It was the seagulls that caught his eye. They were screeching and circling, gathered around something on a rocky spit facing the harbor. Even though he knew it probably wasn't anything he'd want to see up close, he couldn't help the curiosity, especially when he saw that whatever it was had an enormous tail trailing in the water.

And a pair of powerful shoulders.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach at the sight, and he started hurrying, as fast as the slippery, sharp-edged rocks would let him, splashing through pools and nearly gashing his knee open when he tripped. Had his merman beached himself like a whale? Surely being out of the water couldn't be great for him.

There was never any doubt in his mind that it was the same merman, even before he began picking out the details, matching them to his memory; the stripes and scars of his tail, the color of his hair and the set of his shoulders, even if he'd never seen them so slumped and defeated before. 

The seagulls scattered, screaming and flapping and stinking, at his approach, and relief washed through him when the merman lifted his head. Alive, even if he looked like hell; there was seaweed in his hair and seagull crap on his arm and his tail looked dried-out and unhealthy. But Rin could see on his face the moment the merman recognized him, the flowering of happiness and relief just as clear as his own had been.

 _Shit,_ Rin thought, his heart clenching and twisting in his chest. _I'm in trouble._ But it was too late to change that, so he just kept walking until he could crouch down by his merman, dangerously close if you took the half-drowning into account, and pick a piece of kelp out of his hair. The merman grimaced slightly, too happy to look truly chagrined about being such a mess. 

"Look," Rin said, as much for his own benefit as the merman's, "I get that you don't need to breathe air, but come on. You have to have seen dolphins or whales, right? Seals, sea lions, whatever?" 

The merman said something and Rin nearly fell over on his ass out of sheer surprise. So he could talk after all, and of course it didn't sound like any language Rin had ever heard of. And it didn't even matter, because Rin just liked the sound of his voice, and he was really, really in trouble here. 

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't understand it," Rin said. "I know you weren't trying to drown me on purpose, okay? It's written all over your face."

This time the merman didn't say anything, just reached out, tentatively, hand hovering near Rin's arm. Rin waited, holding his breath, but after a moment he realized the merman wasn't going to touch him without permission.

He reached out, brushed his fingertips across the merman's palm, and laced their fingers together.

His hand felt exactly like a human hand, though softer than any Rin had ever touched; however merfolk got their food, it must not build calluses. His skin might have been a bit colder than Rin's, but then, he'd been moping on the rocks for a while and Rin had just been, if not running, at least hurrying. His hand was warmer than the air, though, and Rin decided he had to be warm-blooded, shark tail or no. And he was thinking all that because the merman's face was all naked pain and regret and it hurt to look right at him, even though Rin had to steel himself to do it just to let him know it was okay now. 

Their eyes locked for one breath, another, and then Rin finally tore his gaze away to look down at their intertwined hands.

How many of those stories of mermaids drowning men went like theirs nearly had? How many times had two people started to fall in love only to have it end with a mistake just like that, clueless and well-meant?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the [Merman Sousuke AU](http://joannaestep.tumblr.com/tagged/merman-problems/chrono) by Joanna Estep, though it got Jossed by the most recent installment in the series. Go take a look at the gorgeous artwork!


End file.
